


Wretch

by LionThot



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Atonement - Freeform, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, One Shot, Romance, Sibling Incest, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LionThot/pseuds/LionThot
Summary: After Gold Morning, Victoria was faced with an option: keep the memories of the worst years of her life, or forget them and start anew.
Relationships: Amy Dallon | Panacea | Red Queen/Victoria Dallon | Glory Girl | Antares
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Wretch

"Before I give you back these memories, I have to warn you," Amy began, her voice on the edge of quivering.

It had taken weeks and something close to an argument, but finally I had managed to convince her. She always deflected, telling me that I chose to forget, that there was only pain there, and that if I loved her, then I should trust her. Even though I trusted her more than I trusted myself, I had explained, there was no way for me to know that it was my choice to forget. Even though I loved her almost as much as life itself, there were almost three years of my life missing. I couldn't just pretend that they had never happened, not when it seemed like my life began with losing everything. All I wanted was to have a little bit more of the world we left behind. Amy reluctantly agreed, and the morning found us sitting on the edge of our bed, dawn filtering in through the windows in our cabin.

"I know you don't believe this," Amy continued. "But I _hurt_ you on a profound level. I know it's been years but, what you're about to face... It's something I can't forgive myself for. It's something that I don't know how to atone for. I might lose you by restoring these, but... I was wrong to ever take them away. It was me being selfish, just like I always have been.

If you never want to see me again, if this is the last thing I ever say to you, know this:  
I love you Vi, more than anything on any world in any reality. All I wanted back then was for you to know what I was going through, but all I want for you now is to never hurt again. It's the least you deserve."

Seeing the pain in her eyes, I couldn't help but want to reassure her. I wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in to give her the sort of kiss men dreamed to come home to.

"Amy..." I said with a smile. "Don't you know that I love you too? Nothing will ever change that. Nothing _can_ ever change that."

She looked up at me, her eyes beginning to brim with tears, and brushed aside my bang.

"I hope that's true," she said, and kissed my forehead.

There was the slight twinge of her power working as neural paths were rerouted, and just like that, I had to face the reality of my words.

In an instant, two and a half years washed over me, and I had just enough time to question Amy's reluctance before the surge of emotions broke. An eternity of pain, of uncertainty, of hate... There wasn't enough room in my heart to handle it all.

She had tried to make me love her, even though I told her that I couldn't. Back then, the very idea of doing so was repulsive, and still she had forced the feeling on me. Amy, my Amy, had violated me in an unforgivable way. The thought caused my stomach to turn, even as the now-familiar feeling of adoration washed over me at the sight of her.

No matter how much I didn't want that feeling to be matched with disgust, I couldn't change my past. I couldn't unremember the feeling of betrayal. I couldn't un-choose to embrace the feeling she gave me as hate. In my memories, I couldn't change the fact that I was scared of her touching me.

The sudden flood of raw emotion and cognitive dissonance had more than just psychological blowback: a visceral reaction stirred in my gut, and I dropped to my knees. I hadn't eaten yet today, but that couldn't stop the torrent of bile as I drowned in my memories.

Amy instinctively leaned down to put a resuring hand on my back, but her hand was blocked by my forcefield. My forcefield... For so long I had wondered why it had changed after Gold Morning. It wasn't the abstract form of some evershifting aura, changing and growing as I honed my abilities. No, my forcefield had behaved the same way as always: it changed shape to match me, and it no longer recognized this body as my own. The realization was accompanied by another spurt of vomit.

"Vi, are you okay?"  
I coughed, rubbing my mouth with the back of my hand. She should know on every level that I was far from okay. It had been two years since Gold Morning, and in that time I'd built not just a life but a relationship stronger than I ever thought possible. Not even Dean could compare to the woman I loved. How could our relationship be so strong and yet already threaten to buckle? I needed her right now, but the trauma that had been so carefully suppressed and was now overwhelming my very being wouldn't allow that.

"A- Amy," I said, gasping for breath as nausea still clung inside my ribs. My pulse seemed to skip every other beat as wave after wave of emotion broke over me. Abandonment. Loss. Shame. Fear. Hatred. At the root of all of these was her. The wretched girl-thing in the hospital bed knew that if Amy had had even the slightest bit of self control then none of this would have ever happened. It was Amy's fault that I had been denied a future.

However, I wasn't the same person that was trapped in a twisted body filled with grief and hate. I was the girl who lost almost everything when the world ended, the girl who found everything else in the one person who still cared for me, who would always care for me. Whatever I was feeling right now, I had to hold fast to that concept of myself so that it wouldn't be lost forever.

"Amy," I repeated, slowly beginning to calm down. My breathing had steadied, but my body refused to let the forcefield down. I couldn't unclench my fists. "Why? Why did all of this happen?"

As I began to return to lucidity, I noticed gouges in the floor and the bed where the forcefield had instinctively activated. Amy was physically unharmed, but tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Things were impossible back then, Vi. I had something ugly growing inside me, and I needed you to keep it at bay. Knowing that you would never feel the same way hurt, but I could handle it. I swear, I could have, it's just... That argument was the breaking point, all of that ugliness and desperation got the better of me, and after that," her voice trailed off.

"Bonesaw," I said, and she nodded. Two years ago, I wouldn't have been able to be in the same room as her, and yet not even a year later, I looked in her eyes and told her that she was more than a sister to me. I had told her that she was my anchor, keeping me from drifting away into a downward spiral of loneliness. I hadn't known that just six months before I blamed her for dragging me into that spiral in the first place.

"I couldn't get a clear enough picture of you in my head," Amy choked out, beginning to sob. "I knew you were beautiful in so many ways but... But I just couldn't put it all together."

It took effort to remember that becoming that grotesque facsimile of a person wasn't Amy's fault, even if it was her hand that twisted and gnarled my flesh beyond recognition. Still, I could almost remember her face as she tried to undo what Bonesaw had done to me, a harsh wail raking her throat as attempt after attempt to recreate the woman she loved only brought more despair.

Two years ago, the thought of Amy crying like that might have given me a sadistic glee, but there were no teeth left in the thought. Whatever malice towards her that I felt in that hospital bed no longer existed. All I saw was my sweet younger sister in so much pain, and I knew that she had suffered like I had.

The entire time that I was trapped in that bed, she had had to live with what she did to me. She turned herself into the Birdcage, the closest thing to hell on Earth, knowing that she would have to stay there for the rest of her life. Even when she was released, even after I was fixed, Amy had been hesitant to reconnect. She had undone everything, even the emotional manipulation, but guilt still ate at her. Every single day we were together was a day she spent waiting for our relationship would crumble when I inevitably discovered why I had asked for my memories to be erased.

And now, I knew.

My forcefield finally began to fall, and as soon as I could, I held her. I didn't think I could go through anymore of the residual emotions without her, and Amy needed the hug just as much as I did. Burying my face in the brown curls of her hair, I let myself break down. The pain of the past and the vulnerability of the present all blurred together into one single scent that had become my escape from the harsh realities of building a new world, a scent of pine and cinnamon and love and trust and of a girl named Amy Dallon. Our lives were inexorably twisted together in this universe and in every other.

* * *

Hours passed before we finished crying, until our bodies gave in and we simply ran out of tears. Even the memories felt dull with emotional exhaustion. Whatever fear, sadness, or anxiety remained would simply have to wait til later— we had simply reached our physical limits. Full recovery would be a long road, but for today, we were okay, and that was more than either of us could have asked for.

Amy looked up at me, resting her back against my embrace, and I pressed my forehead against hers. It was a simple, cat-like show of affection, but one we both understood. It was familiarity when we needed it most. Looking in her eyes, I retrieved a small item from the pocket of my sleep shorts.

"Amelia," I whispered, just barely enough to get her attention, my throat was raw from sobbing. She smiled, and even though her lips were cracked and her eyes red from crying, I knew that she was the most beautiful woman in the universe.

"Every day, I wake up and am amazed at how far we've come. What started as a shack on the outskirts of a foreign world has grown so far beyond that. We've built so much together, not just this cabin, but an entire life with one another. We've struggled through harsh winters to get here, but we've always persevered. We've grown strong because of one another. The only doubts I've ever had were because of those memories, but now that I remember, I'm certain."

The gesture may have been old-fashioned, anachronistic to the life we had built, but nonetheless I got down on knee as I presented the ring. The materials had been hard to get, but the months of effort I had put into procuring them were more than worth it: a silver band with five tiny rubies forming a cross in gold at the center. I had intended to draw from our old costumes, but I wasn't sure whether the motifs had come through. I was hardly a jeweler, but I knew that I wanted to make the ring myself.

I asked the question. It was purely for ceremony, of course. We both knew what her answer would be.

A beat of silence, and then she started to laugh. Chuckles at first, dry and droll, before evolving into a proper laugh of delirium, of exhaustion, of relief, and of hope. Laughs from the belly or the heart or from her tired soul itself, loud and clear like church bells. The sentiment was infectious, and before long I was laughing with her. Our voices rang from the cabin and out to the forest, where they disappeared amongst the cicadas and birdsong, the competing choruses of the warm summer afternoon becoming one.

**Author's Note:**

> Guts and Glory is a ship that I've thought of as "utterly unfixable" for the longest time— turns out, all I needed to do was start Ward to find a tidy place for their relationship to begin to resolve. 
> 
> These girls have lived in my head rent-free since I read Worm for the first time in 2016, and I'm excited to finally write a story about them!


End file.
